A "journey" involving running in place in the deep end. Quite possibly I've gone off the deep end.

Friday, September 2, 2011

One and only shot - random friday facts

Since I didn't have time to do an interesting or relevant post, I'm doing "Random Friday Facts". What the heck.

I am a ridiculously hard blood draw. No one ever finds a vein on the first time; it usually takes at least three tries, sometimes many more, with multiple people trying. I'm the phlebotomy equivalent of the jar that WILL NOT OPEN. More than once, I've been sent away and asked to come back another day for try two.
Additionally, my veins are tiny, move around a lot, and have pretty low flow due to my circulation issues, meaning that even when they do find a vein, sometimes they can't get much out of the vein before it collapses. Last week it took 6 tries (two tries each arm, and then both hands) to finally get enough to run a routine CBC test. It's a very good thing I'm not at all phobic about needles.

I paint my toenails black because they're all black anyway. I paint my fingernails black because I like the color, and I like matching all the other nonconformists.

I have always struggled with anything requiring fine motor skills, including typing my shoes, threading needles, drawing, and handwriting. My handwriting was so horribly bad in middle school that I underwent tutoring and testing for neurological problems. When those didn't pan out, I was allowed to take typing class as a 7th grader, and then I carried a word processor with me to take my tests in school (this predates computers, obviously). I was told repeatedly in high school that I was never going to succeed in life with horrible handwriting, since typing was only an option in certain limited situations.
Fast forward 20 plus years, and I can safely say that becoming a fast typist at an early age was probably the most useful thing I got out of high school.

I learned how to drive stick shift on the Florida interstate system. I used to fly from DC to Florida each week during the winter to compete in horse shows down there (high school Monday-Thursday; show Friday-Sunday). My trainer would pick me up at the airport in Gainesville on Thursday night and drive me the hour to Ocala, where the horse show was. One night, trainer decided there wasn't anything more fun to do, so she informed me that I would be driving us to Ocala. It took me 20 minutes to get out of the airport parking lot. But a bit over an hour later, I knew how to drive stick.

My mother fell down the stairs when she was 9 months pregnant with me. I have a rather substantial dent in the top of my head that I’m convinced is the result of this.

8 comments:

Ha, I'm a blood draw freak too. There's always some phlebotomist who thinks they're going to be the one to get anything out of my left arm (nope, doesn't happen) or get the right arm on the first try. And word processors...bwah ha ha. I had a Brother word processor that was really more of a glorified electric typewriter.

I went through all the neurologist crap too, for the same reasons. I'm not a super-fast typist (60-ish wpm thanks to a community-college typing class I took in HS and 15 years of programming for a living), but still wish I'd learned a LOT earlier.

My now 70 year old dad took typing when he was in HS and he demanded we take it as well. He claimed learning that skill was the smartest thing he ever did. Seemed weird for a math major, but he then turned both skills into computer programming in the 70's. I still think he's the fastest typist I know.

Full slew of race reports here (from my first in June 2007 to 2010) and here (2011).

workouts

(you can click on the link to see the details)

Pool running conversion

I convert my pool-running into “mileage” with this formula:

1)10 minutes “easy” in the pool equals one mile

2)workouts translate by time into mileage, with the recoveries not counting for mileage.For example, I would normally cover half a mile in 3:00 during an interval workout, and 1.5 miles in 10:00 during a tempo.So 8x3:00 at interval effort is 4 miles, and 10 minutes at tempo effort is 1.5 miles.